Living the posh life of a true arteeest!

As they say here at IES, I've been 'squeezing the juice'. Each day I do something new and I've already seen so many incredible things.

 The first museum I went to was the Art museum in the Museum Quartier. It just so happened that one of the art history teachers from IES (my study abroad program) was giving the tour and is one of the world's biggest art historians right now. no big deal. And her father was the most renowned art historian in the world for like 200 years. So we got in for free and she was awesome. This little tiny old lady that knew everything about every painting and taught us how to really look at art. The museum was built to fill in free space that used to be open so invaders would be easily seen when coming to attack the city. Seeing real paintings from the Baroque era was just incredible. Some of them were huge and almost took up the entire wall. I only spent two hours in there and there's so much I didn't get to see! This is a view of the museum from the outside:

The statue of Empress Maria Theresea in the middle of the museum quartier, one of the grandest rulers of the Hapsburg Dynasty

Next comes the bus tour I went on this past weekend. It was about 3 hours and first we traveled outside of the city up to the top of a mountain to see an incredible view of the city. It was absolutely stunning and I definitely plan on going back because they have all sorts of hiking that goes through vineyards and of course there are plenty of cafes on top of the hill too. 

View of the city with vineyards and the Danube on the left!

Next, we went to an area in the city that is famous for its architecture. The guy who designed the buildings thought all of the buildings in the city looked too much alike and were quite boring so he decided to go with a more natural style. The ground is not paved over and straight, but brick and curvy just as the ground was in its orignial state. Even inside buildings. There is greenery inside the buildings and it's pretty neat. The first owners of the apartments he built also got to help custom design their places. Pretty sweet.

Finally, onto the upper Belvedere. This palace was built I believe for a prince related to the Hapsburgs as just a summer home. It's now a museum of paintings. 

Not too shabby eh?

View of the grounds outside the Upper Belvedere

A few days after this tour we went inside the Upper Belvedere which is as I said, an art museum. It was also incredible. Inside were some statues from the Medieval Era (they were the original works of art from the time!), Monet paintings, that painting of Napolean Bonaparte on his horse that's always in history books, and of course 'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt. I don't know a lot about Klimt but that he's a very famous austrian artist known this painting and a few others. I had seen pictures of it before but seeing it with my own eyes was really something. I love the painting and knowing that it's world famous and that I was looking at the original was awesome. 

I could spend an entire afternoon looking at Klimt's work. 

A small picture of the grandeur inside the Upper Belvedere. Quite a fancy ceiling. In this particular room was also where leaders from Russia, France, England, the U.S. who each had occupied a section of Austria after the war, decided that Austria could be its own Republic. Pretty epic. 

Illegal Picture from inside the Museum. It was innocent however, I don't think the stern security guard thought so. Sorry Mr. Angry German Guard



A memorial to Anton Bruckner. He died in a little house right next to the Upper Belvedere.

I think the pictures say it all, Vienna truly is incredible. There is so much to see and learn and it's wonderful living in a place where the arts are so appreciated and valued! And this is only the beginning!